The Press., 1887-03-17
WASHINGTON LETTER.

Washington D. O., March 12 1887.
 Notwithstanding the adjournment of congress, will continue. tor a while at least, to. send you weekly Washington letter. Interest in national affairs is per renal and it should be SO with the Amer lcau citizen of both sexes and of sufficient intelligence to know what is going on at the headquarters of the great nation, of which the people in such an intimate and responsible way are n part can think of no higher duty of the press than to ed ucate its readers and to keep it alive to the fact that they are tue constituents not of town, county or state merely, but of great nation, essaying the sublime ex- pertinent of self-government, and that in the government of the United States is embarked a richer aud more promising freigbta9e of human hope and endeavor than has before been known in the history of our planet. We read with interest the pages of Roman and Grecian history we dwell with rapture on the dark romantic volumes of the middle ages, and upon the vivid narrative of the progress of civiliza- tion as portrayed by the modern writers of France and of England.
 If the noblest study of mankind is man, these can not but be useful, but they aIe useful especially in that they afford ms the N and country. Never before or elsewhere has the touch between the people and the government been so close as it is in the United States. More than ten thousand newspapers, assisted by the telegraph and the latest printing appliances, keep the people informed of measures and events transpiring at the capital and the rear and remote parts of the union. No citizen who is not recreant to the dearest trust ever vouchsafed to man can be indifferent to the manner and even to the details of his governme nt. | He should study it with the best light his time and means afford, realizing that he cannot escape transmitting it impaired or improved to his posterity. It is not n the power of Jay Gould to give to his chil- dren rich a gift as intelligent, benih- cent, enfranchised American citizenship can bestow on the generations that are to come. The man who confines his atten. ton to his own affairs, no matter how pure and upright his life, can be a good man only in narrow sense. If he fails to con. tribute by his voice and his vote to the puriication and the intelligent administra. tion of public affairs he hides like COW ard while criminals monopolize the polls
 and send their kind to the state lepisla
 lures and 10 Washington. -.
 It has been common of late to speak oi the wiokedness of Washington. The city is no better and no worse than the peopl, make it. You must remember that tht
 citizens of your capital are helpless, anC are only in a limited sense responsible fo
 their government. There are 250, coo ' people n the District of Columbia bu they cannot vote. The president appoint
 three commissioners who are entrusted r with the government under laws enacte ], by congress. Send hither better congress men and we will have better laws. Sent : us better president and we will have bet ter commissioners, who will in turn mak , better effort to suppress the hells of vic
 and degradation. Mir. Cleveland's inten : tions are good, but hls experience is sadl, , limited. Many of his appointments, whil not positively bad, are weak, ignorant ant incompetent. This is notably the case il
 the commissioner of patents, who, how
 ever, is about to redeem himself by resign
 ing. '